Still Sammy
by Hunting Angels
Summary: While soulless, Sam gets into trouble with a demon. He gets serious hurt leaving Dean to come to the rescue. While patching him up, Dean realizes that despite being soulless, it's still his baby brother.


Sam could feel a hole where his soul once was but he wasn't focused on that right now. He had bigger things to worry about.

Sam felt the cold blade rip through his skin. The young hunter grunted in pain as blood began to surface in the wound. The demon pulled the blade back out, laughing as Sam fell to his knees. He blinked up at the dark eyed demon wearily. His energy being used to stay conscious. Black spots danced before his eyes as he could hear his blood beating through his ears.

"You will pay for what you did." The demon with hair as dark as it's eyes growled at Sam.

Sam leant his heavy head back, looking the demon in it's inky eyes. A sticky piece of blood soaked hair flopped over Sam's bruised face. He spat up at the creature, a mix of saliva and blood hit his torturer directly in the face. "Try your best, you son of a bitch." He scowled.

The demon fisted a chunk of Sam's hair and pulled his head up to peer directly into his cold hazel eyes. The demon pauses like that for a moment before hissing, "and they call me cold."

The demon released Sam, letting the hunter fall onto his hands and knees. The young man groaned, trying to hide his pain from his captor. The male demon chuckled, seeing through Sam's flaking mask of disinterested. He dug the blade into his arm and pulled it along, separating the tanned skin.

Sam winced, sucking air in through his teeth. Tears burred his vision as he kneeled over. Blood stained his shirt in large blotches. Warm blood oozed from gashed and wounds. His head throbbed and he held his sprained hand to his chest. The black spots grew larger blocking his vision. He could see the demon laughing at him but no sound could penetrate the bubble in his ears that muffled out any of the noise.

Sam peered up at the demon through his blood-darkened hair. He sucked in a gulp of air through his teeth and prepared to speak when the demon threw it's head back and whole body began to spasm.

It was then that Sam could see the tip of a blade sticking through the demon's neck. The demon jerked one last time before falling to it's knees. Sam pulled himself back just as the demon fell onto the ground where he previously was. The hunter peered up dizzily. Dean was standing behind where the demon was lying. The elder Winchester was staring down at his injured sibling with worry in his eyes. Sam groaned before collapsing over onto his side.

Dean jumped forward wrapping his arms around his unconscious brother. He shook Sam gently in an attempt to bring his brother back to consciousness.

"Sammy? Sammy? Come on, Sammy!" Dean groaned as he tried to pull the younger man up off the cold floor. Sam stayed stubbornly asleep, much to Dean's annoyance.

The elder Winchester reached out and pulled the knife out from the back of demon's neck. Blood dropped from Ruby's blade making Dean moan and wipe it down his jeans before slipping it into his pocket.

Dean hooked his arms under Sam's armpits and tried to heave his giant brother from the floor. Stumbling and tripping along, Dean managed to get his brother outside the old building.

He opened the back door of his Midnight black Impala and laid his limp brother across the back seat. Tapping his cheek gently, Dean tried to wake his brother up.

"Come on, Sammy" Dean muttered while pulling himself into the front. "Stay with me, man."

Dean pulled away with a squeal of tires. The thought of hospital flashed through his mind but he knew that it wasn't an option for them. There'd be too many questions.

Sam groaned from the back seat as he fell in and out of consciousness. His vision was blurred but he vaguely understood that he was on the back bench of the Impala. The sound of Dean speaking to him was comforting despite the fact that he couldn't make out his brother's words. He groaned as the pounding in his head made him cringe in pain. Each cut on his body throbbed and leaked blood. Pain shot through his head as he lowered his eyebrows. Rising a shaking hand, Sam gently touched his forehead. The fingers were brought away stained with blood.

A deep groan pulled itself from Sam's lips. Being soulless meant that he had refused to show pain as the demon cut his flesh to ribbons. He'd pushed down the cries of pain as the demon tortured him. This had the unfortunate side effect of making the demon want to torture him more.

Lucky for him, Dean had shown up just in time. His thoughts clouded as they drove over a bump in the road. Pain buzzed around his muscular frame.

Darkness closed in on his thoughts. A weak whimper broke through his lips making Dean glance worriedly over his shoulder. He was lucky he got there in time. Any longer and Sam would have been in some deep shit... Deeper shit anyway.

The drive seemed like eons to the boys when really it was only a matter of minutes. They pulled up to their motel and after struggling for several minutes, Dean finally got a partly unconscious Sam inside their room.

He flipped on the lights and dragged the taller man over to the bed furthest away from the door as per habit. He places him down gently, being careful not to jerk or jolt his injuries. The blood stains were still spreading through the plaid material but at a reassuring slower pace.

Dean pulled at the buttons on the shirt, opening up the front. The elder man held in a gasp. How was Sam still even grasping onto consciousness? Purple and blue bruises were blossoming up one side of Sam's lean body. Blood was drying around a gash that looked to be over an hour old. It was only shallow but it stretched up the side of his torso. Dean silently cursed himself for not getting there sooner.

Sam's eyes were fluttering closed but Dean fought to keep the young man awake and communicating with him in some way. The injured man whimpered quietly and mumbled something about pain through his teeth. Dean suddenly had a warming sensation in his chest, this is more like his Sammy. He leapt to his feet and grabbed a few painkillers from the medical kit along with a glass of water.

"Here, Sammy. Sit up a sec." Dean placed his hand on Sam's back and held him up as the man managed to swallow the medication. "Back down now."

He had to wipe his hand on his jeans as it came away from Sam's back sticky with blood. He winced thinking of the pain his baby brother was in. He ignored the blood that was staining the bed sheets. He had more important things on his mind.

He grabbed some whiskey from the side of the bed and poured it onto one of Sam's open wounds. The man bucked off the bed at the burst of unexpected pain. A sharp hiss bit through his teeth as his hands shot down to the source of pain. He grabbed the bottle of whiskey from Dean's grasp and started swallowing glug after glug of the strong alcohol.

"Sam, I don't think you should drink that with the amount of medication you'll be having over the next few hours." His voice trailed off quieter and quieter as he realised that his brother wasn't listening.

He broke the bottle from his brother's strong hands and applied some more to the wound before pulling out a needle and dental floss. He threaded the needle efficiently before piercing it through the skin, pulling the two sides together. He continued this along the cut until it got shallow enough to be called a scratch.

He pulled Sam's dirty shirt back to inspect his brother's giant body more thoroughly. A deep stab wound caught his eye immediately. He let his fingers drift over the cut before whispering an apology under his breath and grabbing the alcohol again. This wound was deep but not wide. It was only as wide as a blade. It only took Dean a few minutes to have it washed out and sewed up. The hunter's stitches were neat and almost professional looking. Practice made it that way, the thought made Dean frown. He applied healing cream to the two cuts and also to the growing bruises that were also darkening rapidly across the flesh.

He pushed gently at Sam's mostly undamaged side in soundless communication for him to roll onto his front. Blood made the blanket cover stick to his back briefly as he moved. It fell as he settled down on his stomach while trying to hide the moans of pain from Dean. His bruises were throbbing against his ribs and worn muscles.

Dean pulled the shirt away and glanced over the mess that was Sam's back. He knew that his brother wasn't stupid. He would never turn his back on a demon. Both Dean and their dad had taught him better than that. Especially a demon with a knife. It proved Dean's suspicions correct: Sam had been jumped. The fight/torture wouldn't have gotten that far if Sam had been prepared. The wounds on his back were deep, as if the demon had tried to do a Julius Caesar on his brother. Dean could imagine Sam wrenching around and swinging for the demon despite the blinding pain that accompanied being stabbed.

He poured the whiskey into the deep cut and watched Sam's back muscles tense at the burning pain. The cut filled with alcohol which posed a mess as it flowed across the younger man's tanned skin and mixed with the blood on the bed sheets. Dean groaned as he could imagine the stickiness increasing with every drop.

After a perfect row of stitches was sewn, Dean moved on. Cut by cut, he wordless fixed his broken brother. Gash by gash, he silently put him back together. Wound by wound, he soundlessly patched up the holes and soothed the bruises.

This was his Sam. No matter if he was soulless it was still his little brother. The little brother that he taught, fed and raised. The sibling he had fixed and patched up so many times he had lost count. This was the Sam he knew: the Sam that needed him.

Dean sighed and gently rolled Sam back over. At some point the tall man had fallen into a unrestful sleep. He wiped the dried blood from the bruised face and put soothing cream on the small cuts and bruises. He pulled together the skin above Sam's right eyebrow with two dental floss

stitches. The asleep man frowned but his eager alcohol and medication consumption had taken the kick out of the pain. Dean dabbed at Sam's split lip as it bled. He knelt on the floor beside Sam on the bed with one arm supporting himself and one arm holding the cloth that soaked up his brother's blood.

Sam stirred in his sleep making Dean pull away from his not so little brother. The large man mumbled under his breath as eyes moved rapidly beneath their lids, "Dean..."

The elder Winchester lent closer as his brother called him. He remained silent, listening for Sam's strained words.

"...Dean... Thank you."

Dean's eyes watered slightly as he squeezed Sam's hand gently. This was his Sammy, soulless or not.


End file.
